Throughline - Olympics: Behind The Five Rings

Episode Date: July 22, 2021

The Olympics originated in Ancient Greece, and were resurrected in the 1890's after a 1,500 year ban. Since then, the International Olympic Committee has been behind every Olympic Games. In this episode, we explore the story of how the IOC turned the Olympics into a huge commercial success and whether the cities that host the games end up winning or losing.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. The Tokyo Summer Olympics were supposed to happen last year. But COVID-19 got in the way. When you spend your whole life working. Training.

Waiting. For one moment. Athletes were disappointed, devastated. And suddenly, you have to wait for that moment even longer. And now fans are disappointed too. So there'll be no spectators at Olympic events in Tokyo. Japan's government is facing growing criticism for its handling of the pandemic.

Keeping fans out of the stands will save lives, but it presents the Tokyo organizers with a big problem. They had spent billions to build stadiums and infrastructure to host the Olympics, and they are already way over budget. Without ongoing ticket sales and vendor revenue generated by spectators, they are not going to bring in as much money as they need to offset costs. But here's the thing. Even though the circumstances are unique, Tokyo is not. Massive financial budgets have become normal for Olympic host cities. The games always go over budget. There

was a study by the University of Oxford that looked at all Olympics between 1960 and 2020 and found that every single one of them for which there is reliable data had cost overruns. This is Jules Boykoff. He's a professor at Pacific University in Oregon and has authored a bunch of books on the Olympics. One of his most recent books is called Nolympians, inside the fight against capitalist megasports in Los Angeles, Tokyo and beyond. In it, Jules makes the argument that the Olympics have essentially become a money-making venture, taking advantage of something he calls celebration capitalism. It allows capitalists to swoop in and to capitalize off this social celebration called the Olympics. And what exactly does that look like? One recent example that I think is interesting comes from Tokyo,

where in order to facilitate the building of the new national stadium, there was a local ordinance put in place that previously you could only build buildings up to 15 meters in height. But that was lifted to make the stadium possible to 80 meters. We should note that this ordinance applied to buildings near the stadium, not the entire city. Not only did that make it possible to build a really tall stadium, but it also allowed well-connected economic elites to build some of their buildings even higher and extract more rent out of those who they're renting to. And so it became a boon for developers. And that's what we see time and again is sort of off the back of athletes and their amazing labor. We've got a class of people who come in and build up an Olympic city to their advantage. Pizza. Now,

you told your mama to buy Milwaukee Wave's pizza. That's the best. Thanks, Papa. Hey, kids, if you come watch us play, you might win a free Milwaukee Wave pizza. Okay, quick digression. That voice you just heard, hawking pizzas, that's Jules Boykoff in the 1990s in an advertisement for a local pizza joint in Milwaukee where he was playing professional soccer that's right and with this pizza you could get your favorite player's trading card you might even get me I'm happy to get it right on the table early that I do love sports and I spent a huge part of my life trying my best to play high level sports Jules was a Division I soccer player, then played professionally in several cities in the U.S., and most importantly for our story. I had the good fortune of playing for the U.S. Olympic soccer team in international matches. In

fact, my first match ever was against the Brazilian Olympic team in France in front of a nice crowd that all wanted Brazil to win, of course. That experience as an athlete is partly what got him interested in the economics, politics, and cultural impacts of sports. And this is why he wanted to investigate the machinery behind sports, especially the Olympics. What's going on beyond the theater of competition? Who runs the Olympics? Today, when we think of the Olympics, most people think of the remarkable athletes who have taken the stage there and done remarkable things.

But behind that sort of shimmering scrim of amazing athletes sits an organization that rules the Olympics with an iron fist. And that organization is called the International Olympic Committee. The International Olympic Committee, the IOC. Now, the Olympics first started in ancient Greece, but didn't really become an international event until it was resurrected in the 1890s. It was originally started by a baron, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, so a French aristocrat, who started the Olympics back in the 1890s.

And basically, he gathered a gaggle of his buddies together that were counts and dukes and other barons, and he started the International Olympic Committee. For 127 years, this organization, the IOC, has been behind every Olympic Games. They've created and spread the mythology of the event. They've marketed, they've innovated, and in the process have become incredibly successful.

In the last few years or so, the IOC has brought in billions of dollars of revenue. It has a beautiful headquarters in Switzerland and it oversees one of the biggest television events in the entire world. So in this episode, we're going to find out how this happened. We're going to explore the story of how the IOC turned the Olympics into a huge commercial success and why cities like Tokyo often seem to come out on the losing end. I'm Ramtin Arablui, and you're listening to ThruLine from NPR. Hi, this is Kim and her cat Missy from Rochester, New York. You're listening to ThruLine from NPR. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies.

Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. Part one, a false start. Denver offers the magic of the West, its adventure, tradition, and culture. But more than that, Denver wants to share its mountains, its competitive experience, and its facilities with all the world. I think to truly understand the deeper commercialization of the Olympics, you actually have to backstep to 1976. Most of all, the people of Denver want to share a truly enriching experience at the 12th Winter Games. We hope we'll see you in 76. In 1970, the IOC selected Denver, Colorado as the

host of what would be the 1976 Winter Olympics. But if you go searching right now for those Olympic Games, you're not going to find any amazing footage or any records being broken. That's because they never happened. If you were to ask someone in Colorado four years ago if they favored Colorado hosting the 1976 Winter Olympics, the reaction would have been favorable. But that was before it became a reality. Now there is a strong movement in Colorado against the 1976 Winter Olympics. People across the political spectrum, from fiscal conservatives to environmentalists, came together and were very concerned about what hosting the games would do

to the mountains around Denver, not to mention the cost that were involved in it. If it's going to screw up the ecology and bring a lot of people here that are going to end up screwing up the ecology more, I don't want it. I'd rather watch it in Germany or France or somewhere. So they flooded the International Olympic Committee with letters against the games. They were using slogans like, don't fornicate Colorado. They were very concerned about Californians moving over once they gentrified the ski slopes. And so they put together this referendum for the state of Colorado that

said that voters got to choose whether they would give money over, their taxpayer money, to this Olympic spectacle. Colorado voters decided they did not want the 1976 Winter Olympics being held in Colorado. In November 1972, this referendum, the pro-Olympic side had a huge budget, around $175,000, whereas those who were critical of the Games spent less than $24,000, and yet they had the people power. And in the end, overwhelmingly, the voters said no. 60% said no thanks. Denver was the first and only city to ever win an Olympic bid and have its people reject it. Up to that point, several Olympic Games went over budget and cost the host city millions of dollars. Denver would escape that fate.

But the city that hosted the 1976 Summer Olympics, the same could not be said for it. I declare open the Olympic Games of 1976, celebrating the 21st Olympiad of the modern era. The Montreal Olympics. Now, those games actually did happen. And what happened there was the mayor of Montreal, Jean Drapeau, infamously claimed that the Montreal Olympics could no more have a deficit than a man could have a baby. I repeated, I repeated these games, 1976 Montreal, will be the first Olympic Games that will be entirely self-financed. That prediction did not turn out to be true. In fact, it was way off. The original estimate for the cost of the stadium was $120 million. The current estimate, $564 million.

Guess what? Those Olympics cost $1.5 billion. They didn't get paid off for 30 years until 2006. And who was left to foot the bill? The people of Montreal, not the IOC. And some taxpaying Montrealers have come to know it as the big O. It took us 30 years to pay it off. And as a taxpayer, not too happy about that. But Montreal's loss is the world's gain.

From this legacy, cities around the world have been warned, when bidding and staging the games, you must avoid the big O. The financial failure of the Montreal Olympics left the IOC on its back foot. Cities were realizing that hosting the big O, the Olympics, was a gamble that they'd probably lose. The IOC was afraid cities would stop bidding and they needed to change this dynamic. They looked for new leadership and then

entered this guy. In the name of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch. I would like to extend our deepest gratitude. Juan Antonio Samaranch is a key figure in the history of the Olympics. From a career in politics in Franco's fascist Spain, he won a place on the IOC in 1966. Just in case you missed that, Samaranch spent a big part of his adult life serving in the government of the dictator of Spain, Francisco Franco. He was the sports minister under Franco. He was serving Franco and his regime for four decades. There's even a photo of Samaranch that you can easily find online.

In 1974, at a rally in Spain, doing the Spanish fascist salute, which looks a lot like the Nazi salute. After a career working for Franco, Samaranch became a businessman, and for the most part, he was good at it. So when he took over as IOC president in 1980, he was determined to never let something like Montreal happen again. His challenge? To take the games from the bankrupt, boycott era and make them the world's favorite sports festival. Welcome to the opening ceremonies of the Games of the 23rd Olympiad at Los Angeles. And it wouldn't take long for Samaranch to figure it out. The 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics would be the one that turned things around for the IOC. There was a very small pool of applicants for the 1984 Olympics involving Los Angeles and Tehran in Iran.

And Tehran dropped out in 1978. And then that left Los Angeles with a whole lot of leverage to do things differently because it was the only option for the International Olympic Committee. The IOC made sure in its charter that the city was obligated, no matter what, to pay for dinner. At issue is the financial responsibility of the Olympics. The IOC position, if a city hosts the games, it picks up the tab. But Los Angeles officials insist that Olympic costs have increased so dramatically that it is almost certain financial suicide to host the game. People in Los Angeles were not exactly keen to give over their taxpayer money for the Olympic spectacle. And so meanwhile,

the mayor of Los Angeles at the time, a guy named Tom Bradley, was not exactly eager to become the next Jean Drapeau for Montreal. And he promised residents of Los Angeles that public money would not be used in the Olympics. I've said that so many times that I don't think it's necessary to say it again, but I will. We will not host the games unless we can ensure that the city of Los Angeles will be free of financial liability. Now, this clashed with a rule in the Olympic Charter at the time. It was Rule 4 is what it was called then, which holds host cities liable for any games-induced debt. This is a really important point.

All cost overruns based on the host city contracts that cities sign with the International Olympic Committee state that the host city is on the hook if the games go over budget. Even some sports journalists jumped in to support Tom Bradley's approach, including this commentary for NPR. My current hero in sports world is Mayor Tom Bradley of Los Angeles, who has refused to mortgage the future of his city for that traveling taco

franchise known as the Olympic Games. Mayor Bradley may be smart or honest or both. Apparently, he has figured out that no matter how successful the games may be from a box office or artistic point of view, the after effects, the real final score, are very curiously apportioned. The power and the glory goes to the International Olympic Committee, those hoary oligarchs who meet to plot their immortality. So what happened was the organizers of the Olympics cut a deal with the United States Olympic Committee that took the unprecedented step of saying that they would share financial responsibility for the games, not the city of Los Angeles. And because the International Olympic Committee had no other options, they sort of grudgingly waived this rule in the Olympic charter. Now, all of this set the perfect storm for privatization. Why privatization? Well, the dynamic had shifted. Los Angeles was the

only city to bid on hosting the games, which gave it leverage over the IOC. And the L.A. City Council said it would support hosting the Olympics as long as it didn't take any financial responsibility for any possible debt. So where would the money come from? Sponsors. The Olympics had used sponsorship in the past, but this time, Los Angeles was going to be more aggressive and seek out bigger brands and get them to spend big. A smaller number of corporate sponsors who they milk for more money. Feel like you're part of the Olympic action. Play McDonald's when the U.S. wins, you win Olympic games. What's your event? Women's Freestyle Relay. Budweiser salutes the Olympic spirit in guys like Mike Prescott and everybody

out there giving it all they've got every day. For all you do, this Bud's for you. You started to see corporate entities start to have to pay nine-figure costs to get involved in the sort of five-ring spectacle. Two new facilities have been built, a swim stadium and cycling velodrome. Both have been paid for by corporations. McDonald's built the swim stadium. Southland Corporation, parent company of 7-Eleven, built the velodrome. The LA Olympics ended up being a huge success for Los Angeles and the IOC. In fact, the IOC made a $225 million profit, which was the first time they were in the green since 1932.

And this, by the way, is something that really catches the eye of the people running the International Olympic Committee. They're like, hey, this is a real possibility here. And they essentially, a few years after those Olympics, model their own program. It originally started to be called the Olympic Program or TOP Program. They modeled it after Los Angeles and their corporate sponsorship. It gave a steady flow of money. And that corporate sponsorship model stays in place today. And it all started in Los Angeles with its huge corporate sponsor program that turned out to be a pretty big success. Security has been a top priority for the planners of the Olympics. 60 law enforcement agencies are devoting 17,000 personnel and $100 million to the effort. There was a flip side to this financial success, though.

Los Angeles had to ensure public safety for thousands of people who'd pour into the city to watch the games. And that required an increased police presence. People in Los Angeles, especially I should say people of color and people who aren't rich, see the Olympics very, very differently. They remember basically an occupying force entering their neighborhoods during the Olympics to make sure that there wasn't unrest. Helicopters are routinely used to assist ground officers

in the pursuit and apprehension of lawbreakers. During the Olympics, these helicopters will observe ground movement and warn of possible trouble before it begins. And in fact, if you look back at media coverage of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, even in the New York Times, they described a Japanese journalist who was just flabbergasted by the constant whir of the helicopter blades as helicopters zoomed and zipped all over town. And so a lot of the special weapons

that were secured in 1984 for the Olympics were then turned around and used against everyday people in Los Angeles in terms of raiding people's homes, so-called drug busts and so on. And so the Olympics are not very popular in 1984 with certain classes of people in Los Angeles. The cold cash goes to the usual gang of builders, bankers, and real estate developers, and the rest,

obligations, liabilities, arrears, white elephant stadiums, unnecessary roads, extra taxes, is awarded to the poor souls who live in the city and support it. Regardless of what many residents experience, the Olympics in Los Angeles were viewed by many as a massive success and suddenly gave the IOC a ton of leverage in their negotiations with cities bidding to host future Olympics. And the financial success would only continue. When we come back, the Olympics go to Barcelona and people all over the world watch on TV. Hi, this is Mimi. And Ramon. And we are driving across the country right now. We're in Friends, Nebraska.

We're driving from Boston to San Francisco. Yeah, and we're huge fans of the show. You guys literally make the hours fly by. Love that we're learning so much as we're driving. Hate that we have to relearn history, but you guys make it real easy. And just appreciate y'all so much. Yeah. So I guess if I had to give advice to anyone out there driving crop country, make sure you listen to ThruLine because we're learning a lot and we love it. Thanks guys. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. from Greece. And meanwhile, a packed stadium and flag-draped cheering streets greet Chancellor

Hitler on his way to perform the opening ceremony. In 1936, the Olympic Games were held in Berlin, where they became a powerful propaganda tool for Nazi Germany. Their message to the world was, look, we can legitimately host an international event. We can engage in a spirit of goodwill through sports. No need to worry about us. And the newest medium for that message was television. Television was first used actually at the 1936 Olympics in Germany. It was very rudimentary, but those were Hitler's games.

I mean, they sort of spread the Olympic propaganda alongside the Nazi symbology, like, you know, the swastika and everything. And so from then on, with each following Olympic Games, more and more people got more and more televisions and the message of the Olympics spread. And then in the 1960 Games in Rome, there was a big fee that was secured by the International Olympic Committee to give away TV rights for those games. And they realized they had something special in the 1960s, a new flow of income that could help bolster their project. By the mid-1960s, they were pulling in millions of dollars for the TV rights. And today, the broadcaster rights for the Olympics comprise a whopping 73% of the International Olympic Committee's revenue. Television was the way that most of us encountered the Olympics for the first time.

For me, it was the 1992 Barcelona Summer Games. It was an epic, star-studded event. That song you're hearing was written by Freddie Mercury from Queen for the Olympics. The IOC secured a $401 million contract with NBC for the games. $401 million. Since, Ramteen, you're a basketball fan, you probably were watching very carefully the U.S.-American Dream team who did so well there. United States Olympic team, what may well be the best basketball team ever assembled. And here they are, moments away from their international debut. I definitely remember being in awe, seeing the best NBA players all together on one team. And I was just one of millions of people watching around the world. In fact, at that point, the 1992 Summer Olympics was one of the most watched television events of all time. It was another big success. Lots of money was made,

and Barcelona actually saw healthy development. The new public spaces that were built for the games would be used well beyond 1992. It seemed like the IOC had figured it all out. After the 1992 games, and they were held up as this sort of symbol for the International Olympic Committee to hold up to the rest of the world and say, hey, look, this worked out pretty well here. They even started to call it the Barcelona model. 1992, Barcelona took this whole concept of Olympic legacy to another level. Their approach in staging the Games was to be a turning point in the way that a host city could use the Olympics to not just provide you sports facilities, but to transform its urban landscape, strengthen its position on the world map, and

create broader social and environmental benefits. Even though some people in Barcelona might argue these claims are a bit overstated, it's clear that the relative success of the Olympics there built on the successes of Los Angeles and became a marketing tool for the IOC. After Barcelona, you had more cities that were keen to host the Olympic Games. That gives the International Olympic Committee more leverage. Back in 1984, when there was only Los Angeles after Tehran dropped out, the leverage moved into the hands of the Los Angeles organizers. Well, the flip becomes the case in 1990s after Barcelona, when all these cities really start lining up and putting forth bids.

But we should note that when Jules Boikov says cities, what he really means is... It's actually the political and economic elites of a city. I have never seen a grassroots bid of working people who really wanted to bring the Olympics to their town. Under the leadership of Juan Antonio Samaranch, the IOC seemed unstoppable. They were bringing in more money

and they were driving a harder bargain with cities. But this wouldn't last forever. Pretty soon, there would be cracks in the IOC's armor, starting with the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. So Atlanta now has its games and it also has its opportunity to define itself for the world, beginning with this ceremony tonight. It led to the decimation of public housing in Atlanta. Poor people were handed one-way tickets out of town on buses. There was

a terrorist attack at the games despite a massive police presence. And it really opened a lot of people's eyes to the downsides of the Olympics. You even had Martin King, the oldest son of the Atlanta-born civil rights icon, Martin Luther King Jr., of the same name. He was railing against the Olympics in Atlanta, talking about how they really just benefited the rich. And I think that's an important pivot point, this sort of mainstreaming of criticism in Atlanta that only carries forward as the Olympics continue to play out. And in the years after Atlanta, things would get even more dicey for the IOC.

The whiff of scandal permeates the 2002 games. Accusations that Salt Lake City had bribed some IOC members with cash, gifts, possibly even the services of prostitutes, so it could get the 2002 games. Scandals emerged around the 2002 Winter Olympics. Federal investigation started and suddenly the IOC had to fight for its reputation. There are FBI agents now running around trying to figure out whether Salt Lake organizers bribed IOC members, whether they committed perjury and tax fraud by failing to disclose the gifts that were given to the International Olympic Committee members on tax returns. Despite all the public criticism, the IOC just kept rolling.

The bottom line is the bottom line, And cities kept bidding on future Olympics. But then, in 2016, the Olympics went to Rio de Janeiro. And what ensued may have tarnished the IOC's image and the Olympic Games forever. That story, when we come back. Hello, my name is Sabina Ali. I grew up in what is now Atlanta, Georgia, the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Muscogee Creek people. You are listening to ThruLine from NPR. City of God. These riot police outnumber protesters here by about three or four to one.

There's obviously an enormous impetus here by Olympic organizers to ensure that everything goes smoothly and peacefully. In 2016, the Olympics came to Rio de Janeiro, the beautiful Brazilian city that has become a huge destination for tourism. But it's also one of the most economically unequal cities in the world. People living in extreme wealth living relatively close to people in poverty. Favelas dot the hills around the city. It's been a rough ride to Rio the past couple of years. There's been a lot of anger over Olympic spending and government corruption. Riot police late Friday blasting smoke grenades into this crowd of protesters,

then charging. The tear gas billowing. Jules Boykoff was also in Rio. He'd been there since 2015. I talk to people on the streets about their experience with the Olympics, people who will never be able to afford a ticket to the Olympic Games. And so I did that when I arrived in Rio and I met a number of courageous people across the city who were raising big and important questions about how hosting the Olympics was affecting their city negatively. We saw all the downsides of the Olympics take shape in Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro followed a trend many other cities engaged in when they hosted the Olympics. First, they overspent.

I mean, really overspent. It's kind of like what I call etch-a-sketch economics, where you have your etch-a-sketch and you write the certain number down for the bid phase, and then you get the Olympics, and then all of a sudden you shake up that etch-a-sketch and write a brand new number on that's inevitably much higher. Second, police with military-style weapons poured into the city. You saw that in Rio de Janeiro where you had 85,000 members of the security forces blanketing the streets. And also, by the way, coming down on a lot of the favelas in the area, there's about a thousand or so favelas, informal communities in Rio de Janeiro

that were also blanketed with security. So there was no uprisings during the Olympic Games. And then there was displacement. Just like in other cities, Rio had to make space for new highways and buildings. But in this case, it was pretty extreme. Forced eviction in Rio, there were 77,000 people who were kicked out of their homes to make way for the Olympics. 77,000 people. And when I was living in Rio, I visited communities that were being affected by the games. And it really affected me too. And it made me realize that, you know, behind the numbers of 77,000 people were 77,000 actual lives that were massively changed. Jules met and wrote about people who were facing eviction.

People from vulnerable communities who already experienced social alienation. And one of those people was... My name is Eloise Helena Costa Berto. A powerful and strong woman by the name of Eloisa Helena Costa Berto. I am known spiritually as Luizinha de Nanã. Eloisa Helena Costa Berto is an activist from a community called Vila Otrodomo. Which Olympic organizers targeted for destruction because it was where they wanted to put a

parking lot next to the media center for the Olympics. Here, Berto is testifying in front of the Brazilian Senate, basically protesting the fact that residents of this community were being forced to move based on the city's desire to build something for the Olympics. People in Vila Autódromo, including Eloisa Elena, fought against their eviction. But nevertheless, hundreds of families were booted. Berto and the community were able to fight

and win a concession from the city. 20 new homes built to house a portion of the families facing eviction. Well, it didn't apply to Eloisa Elena, who, by the way, is an Afro-Brazilian who practices Candomblé religion. And her orisha, or her goddess, her deity, was located right there along the water next to her home in Vila Autódromo. So for her, just getting up and moving and accepting a payment to move to a different part of the city was going to upend her entire spiritual life. And I think that was just one person, Eloisa Elena Costa Berto, whose life was flipped upside down. And there's tons of people like that. Tons of people who lost their communities and saw their lives change, all in order to facilitate a sporting event that would

likely put their city into more debt anyway. And finally, according to Jules, there's one more thing that happened in Rio. Greenwashing. Greenwashing, talking a big environmental game, but having very little follow through. If you read the promises from the Olympic organizers and you read the Rio bid book, you see that they promised that 80% of the water that was filtering into Guanabara Bay, which is where there were going to be some Olympic events, 80% of the water that was filtering into Guanabara Bay, which is where there were going to be some Olympic events, 80% of the water would be treated. This was welcomed by local residents. Guanabara Bay had long been a polluted water source that couldn't be used for much.

There was a lot of hope that this could be a positive legacy project for the Olympic Games. Well, unfortunately, nothing of the sort happened. That 80% promise never occurred. 169 million gallons of untreated water was gushing into the bay by the time the Olympics started every single day. All right. So you might be thinking, what's the IOC doing? How are they helping the city with all these problems? Well, after the Olympics, Rio went into major debt. And when they asked the IOC for approximately $35 million to help pay down that debt, in response, the IOC basically said no, claiming that they'd already paid a little over $1.5 billion.

This happened about a year after construction began on the IOC's new headquarters in Switzerland. The cost of that building? $147 million. The Rio Olympics really crystallized a lot of the problems with the Olympics that are endemic problems. I just want to stress, these are Olympic problems that are important to each and every host city. These are Olympic problems, not necessarily real problems or Tokyo problems. They're Olympic problems that arrive in different levels in different Olympic cities in a contemporary moment. No, on that issue, he's just wrong.

This is Dick Pound. In real life, I'm a tax lawyer in Montreal, but in the Olympic context, I am, I guess, the longest serving active member of the International Olympic Committee. Dick was also an Olympian. Yes, I tell my grandchildren, like all grandparents do, that I swam so long ago, we didn't even have water. I was a double finalist in swimming at the Games in Rome in 1960. Okay, so I won't bury the lead here. Dick disagrees with many of Jules Boykoff's arguments.

He does acknowledge that in some of the past Olympic Games there have been failures, but says that it isn't accurate to hold the IOC responsible because ultimately they can only do so much to regulate the actions of host cities. It's pretty difficult. You know, I mean, the IOC is a very small organization, even though it's got an important role to play. And when you're going up against governments and institutional corruption, there's not much you can do. Although what we try and do is learn from every experience. According to Dick, one of the ways they've learned from past lessons is to include requirements in the host city contract to make sure that labor practices are good, that quality control exists, and that corruption is minimized.

But, you know, we don't have an army at our disposal. We depend on the good faith of the host country to put that into execution, knowing that they're the ones in the end that have to live with the consequences if they get it wrong. But what about the question of whether the cities and IOC should be equally responsible for the outcome. I had to ask, cities are ultimately responsible for budget overtures and any kind of losses that the games might bring economically. Is that true? And if so, is that fair for the IOC to not have to share in that? Yeah, I mean, I think that's entirely normal. The countries have sought to host the Games, and having examined the candidacy, we decide that, yes, we think they can, but they have to execute. We're not in the construction business or the urban planning business.

And you rely on a responsible host city and host country government to ensure that anything in the nature of infrastructure is properly done. Whether you choose to believe Jules or Dick's argument, one thing is clear. Hosting the Olympics can be a risky proposition for cities. So that begs the question, why do cities still bet on hosting the games? The only reason that cities still bid on the Olympic Games is that it's because the elites in those cities bid on the Olympics. We have an audience reaching to five or more billion people around the world, all of whom are united for a period of approximately two and a half weeks in watching the games and watching the finest athletes in the world from 206 national Olympic committees compete in these peaceful, sort of idyllic conditions.

And so there's a huge social impact there. The other reason is because it's become a real venue for sports washing. And by that, I mean, when you have unsavory dictators or authoritarians using sporting events to try to look impressive and important on the world stage in ways that allow them to kind of shuffle under the rug a lot of the misdeeds that are happening. A good example of sports washing is the upcoming Beijing Olympics in 2022, where you'll see leaders from China and other leaders from around the world who are sort of more authoritarian bent using the games to stand on the pedestal and look important.

The Olympic Games will, for most people, always represent the best in what sports can be. And in many ways, they are. Who doesn't love the drama of seeing an underdog nation win a competition? Who doesn't love seeing a lifelong dream fulfilled or learning about a new country? But shouldn't we ask ourselves, at what cost do we get to sit back and enjoy the competition? Olympic spectacle is a powerful drug. And I think a lot of us know that from personal experience. And I think it's become increasingly difficult to square an appreciation of athletes with the ugly underbelly of politics and economics

that make the Olympics happen. That's Jules Boykoff, author of Nolympians, and my former professor at St. Mary's College of Maryland. That's it for this week's show. I'm Ramtin Arablui. Randa Del Fata, my partner in crime, is out this week on a much needed and deserved vacation. The rest of the team includes Lawrence Wu,

Lane Kaplan-Levinson, Julie Kane, Victor Ibeyez, Craig Valdespino, Yolanda Sanguini. The team includes... This episode was edited by Deb George. Fact-checking was done by Kevin Vocal. Thanks also to Anya Grunman and Tamar Charney. Our music was composed by me and my band, Drop Electric, which includes... And finally, if you have an idea or like something you heard on the show, please write us at ThruLine at NPR.org or hit us up on Twitter at ThruLine NPR. Thanks for listening.